Sunday, May 11, 2014

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes #15 Ryan Howard

One Sentence Summary:Ryan Howard capped a four-hit night with an RBI-single in the ninth, giving the Phillies the lead and the eventual 5-4 win.

What It Means: It means the Phillies have a modest little two-game win streak going and they'll go for the series sweep this afternoon.

What Happened: Howard had the big hit, but Jimmy Rollins (3 for 4 with four runs scored) and Chase Utley (2 for 3 with two RBIs) also played key roles in this win. Mike Adams worked into and out of trouble in the eighth to keep the scored tied. Jonathan Papelbon came in with a one-run lead in the ninth and recorded his 11th save.

Featured Card: It's nice to be able to feature Howard's cards again in these game summary posts. This is already the third game in which I've deemed Howard the star of the game so far this year, meriting the featured card distinction. Last year, I only deemed Howard the star of the game a total of three times so he's already matched his season total from 2013. For that reason, I have a lot of his cards from 2013 that never made it to my scanner until recently.

This is his card from the license-less, logo-less Panini Hometown Heroes set which, in retrospect, is actually a pretty nice looking set. Panini came up with a completely original design and my only minor quibble is that the logo in the upper left-hand corner is way too big. Even without team logos, it's nice to see a manufacturer at least trying to compete with Topps.

Happy Mother's Day to all the special Mom's out there, especially my Mom and my wife Jenna!